Katie Stroud Speaker Spotlight

When Katie Stroud was 10, she would use her spare time in class to create worksheets that would help to teach her brother to read and write. This early experience highlighted her early teaching capabilities, but she didn’t know then that this was what she wanted to do. She wanted to be a writer and initially thought she would write novels. Although, her journey through college kept drawing her towards technical writing and she earned her degree in Technical Communication.

During an internship as a technical writer, Katie worked under an instructional designer who tasked her to write help files for an online software product as their customers struggled with using the software. These help files provided a reference for their customers, but Katie wanted to do something more. Katie’s instructional designer introduced her to RoboDemo (known today as Adobe Captivate) and she started creating brief task-based tutorials that could be accessed from the online help system, in 2003. Her love for finding ways to help people learn grew from there. She was supported by her manager, and mentor, with any training needed to become an instructional designer.

Katie currently works as Master Story Crafter at Incremental Success. Incremental Success is a collaborative partnership between Katie and Aaron Stroud and is based on the idea that success cannot be achieved overnight. Long lasting success is achieved when taking little, incremental steps at a time.

When asked what was her ‘driving force’ to love learning and development, she says:

”Work sucks! You may find a few freaks in the world who actually love their jobs, but most people despise having to have a job and go to work. Why? Because they don’t see the impact they have in the world with they work they do. L&D professionals are uniquely positioned to change all that. We can show people how much their work means to the world. It’s my mission to work with my peers to make that happen.”

Katie may be one of the ‘few freaks’ as her passion is to lead workshops and speak and motivate people to become better at leading, instructing and designing. She is sharing her wonderful experience with us at TLDC18, speaking about Corporate Training and Storytelling.

Katie believes that storytelling in corporate training can inspire us and challenge our way of thinking. It’s important because:

“It’s time to do something different. I’ve wandered the conferences and explored the professional circles. The stories are the same. We wonder if we’re really making an impact. We keep looking for new and better ways, but they all seem to be the old ways reorganized. Technology is changing the learning landscape and new science is describing how we learn in more detail. It’s messy out there. How do we cut through all the hype and get back to making an impact?”

It’s not too late to join us at TLDC18 and hear from Katie on getting back that impact. She will show us how to craft simple questions that will change everything. Until then, connect with us on our daily live-streaming broadcast TLDCast or connect with Katie on LinkedIn and Twitter.